As we've
discussed here, the sale of Adam Opel GmbH by General Motors Co. has been a months-long saga with something for everyone -- a heady mix of business, finance and politics local, national and global. We've been thinking that if only someone could really get behind the scenes, especially in the German federal government, it would make a heck of a narrative.
Now someone has: a team of reporters from Germany's Spiegel. Their report, "How Merkel's Attempt to Save Opel Went Awry" is available in English
here, and it's a great read. (Hat tip to Felix Salmon at Reuters blogs for
pointing it out.)
Favorite highlight: Berlin's appointees to the board of the trust that will decide Opel's fate do not agree with the government's backing of the bid from Magna International Inc. (NYSE:MGA) and its Russian allies.
Mystery cleared up: We
wondered earlier why Merkel's request that Washington lean on GM to accept Magna's bid was relayed by the German foreign minister to U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose responsibility GM is not. According to Spiegel it was because the German economics minister declined to call U.S. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, and scheduling problems trapped the finance minister and Geithner in a game of phone tag.
Plenty more where that came from, including some hitherto lacking context on the intra-European and Russian angles. Nice work, Spiegel. -
Kenneth Klee
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